Must shows go on?

Results mixed when series continue after star dies

September 19, 2003|By Tribune Newspapers.

Just as John Ritter died and was mourned, so will his sitcom character Paul Hennessy.

ABC executives announced that "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter," the sitcom Ritter was shooting when he died suddenly last week, will continue for its second season, despite the death of its star. The comedy about a father's reaction to his daughters will now chronicle a family without a dad.

Canceling the comedy, the singular hit among last year's new shows for the struggling network, "was our initial instinct because clearly John is irreplaceable," ABC Entertainment President Susan Lyne said.

But, she added, "The more we talked about it, and the more we saw the impact of his death not just on our family but on families across the country, there was another way to go here."

There is a "show goes on" tradition in entertainment that extends to TV, which has overcome the deaths of cast members in the past, including two last season. The deaths of Richard Crenna of "Judging Amy" and Lynne Thigpen of "The District" meant their characters also were written out of those shows.

"Cheers" survived the 1985 death of Nicholas Colasanto, who portrayed bartender "Coach" Ernie Pantusso, in the sitcom's third season. (Woody Harrelson was hired as new bartender Woody Boyd).

Her character was in decline on "The Sopranos," but writers still scrambled after the death in 2000 of Nancy Marchand, who played Tony Soprano's mother.

The closest parallel to the "8 Rules" situation occurred in 1991, when Redd Foxx, star of the comedy "The Royal Family," also died on the set of a heart attack after just seven episodes had been broadcast.

When it returned several months later, the death of character Al Royal, a letter carrier in Atlanta, was written into the show. The revamped series didn't last a month.

When Freddie Prinze committed suicide in 1977 at the age of 22, his hit series "Chico and the Man" was shut down midseason, only to return in a retooled version the next fall with a younger cast member, Gabriel Melgar, as Raul Garcia.